The lawsuit that Genora Dancel and Ninia Baehr filed against the state of Hawaii started off simply enough: as an ear infection. Ninia had an earache and needed to see a doctor, but she couldn’t access Genora’s health coverage since the state refused to consider them married. So they sued the state.

But longtime LGBT activists refused to join the two women in battling Hawaii. The timing was all wrong, they were told. They’d set the cause back by a generation. The case was “unwinnable.” They should just settle for civil unions, a weak compromise.

But that was before Ninia and Genora started racking up wins. In one court after another, justices heard their argument — that treating same-sex couples differently under the law was unconstitutional — and handed them a victory.

Maybe it was time to rethink the conventional wisdom about what was “winnable."